While bystanders gave us the stink eye and I did my best to appear as nonchalantly hard-ass as possible in a glitter bra, it occurred to me that at this point in my life, I've been in bands longer than I haven't.

14 years to be exact

Jazz combos, punk rock outfits, doom metal, prog and most recently a hybrid I like to think of as "Glunk".

As I suspect most musicians do, I often get the question: "You're in a band, huh? What's that like?"
Sometimes the question is genuine, often snide, and in most cases it's a healthy mix of both...

I think being in a rock band is as close as I'll ever be to a happy marriage.

It's really difficult. And completely awesome. It's especially special when you get with the right humans who have the same Aurel love affair and laser beam of focus that you do.

It's like making a drawing: considering, experimenting, adding and erasing.
You draw the same image again and again for weeks, months, sometimes years until it's ready for human consumption.

Now tie your hand to the hands of three other people and draw that image together. Perfectly.
Every time.
In front of drunk people.

When it works, it's a gorgeous exciting thing. Inevitably, there is always the snot who chimes in with something brilliant like, "What's the point? You'll never be famous."

You're right. We probably won't.

But maybe we will.

Do you stop going for your morning run because you'll never be an Olympian? Or forget about cooking food for friends because you will never have a line of Teflon pans with your face on it?

No. Because we know that would be stupid.We do the things we love because it make us whole humans. Better humans, even.

And getting together with special people to line up chords and drum sounds, and occasionally showing the results to other party people makes me feel like I made the right choice that day.